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Monday, November 21, 2016

DIY baby travel meal set - with tutorial

I'm trying to get my Christmas sewing done in advance this year, and this weekend I finished the travel meal set for my cousin's baby girl.

The set includes a little pouch with pockets for the baby cutlery, a place mat and a matching bib:

Today I'll show you how to make the pouch and the placemat, and over the next few days I will post tutorials for the bib and the placemat.

The pouch is actually easier to make than it is to explain the process here. Whenever possible I added images, which should be self-explanatory, but if you want to make one and still have questions, feel free to e-mail me or leave a comment and I will try to help you to the best of my abilities.

To make the pouch you will need:

the cutlery you will be using. I bought a set to add to the gift, but if you already have it, you'll just need it for measurements

fabric for the pouch. Exact measurements will depend on the size of your cutlery, so read on to get a better idea

batting

two pieces of matching ribbon

material for embellishment (optional). I used fabric yo-yos and fabric covered buttons

Step 1: Take measurements to make sure your cutlery fits in. I cut a piece of fabric 60 x 42 cm, folded it in half (so what you see below is 30 x 42 cm, with the fold at the bottom)...

...and then folded over again about 8 cm over to measure the pocket for the cutlery and the placemat.

Step 2: cut the batting. You will need a piece half the size of your fabric. Since my original fabric was 60 x 42 cm, my batting was sized 30 x 42 cm (the size of the folded fabric)

Step 3: Iron your fabric to mark the fold for the pockets, and also the middle of the fabric, where your pouch will fold over. This is not essential but will help you when sewing.

Step 4: Temporarily unfold the "pocket" and place batting in between the two layers of fabric, and then fold the pocket over in place again.

Step 5: Pin the fabric + batting in the middle (the marking you made when ironing) and then find the middle of your left side pocket and pin it too (just remember that the middle of the left side pocket is not necessarily the middle of the fabric, since you need to take the seam allowance into account - like the image below, your "middle" will be somewhat deviated towards the right side of the fabric).

Also, make sure you pin just the top fabric and the batting. The other layer of fabric (which will be the outside of the pouch) should not be pinned.

Note that I only had two pieces of cutlery and one placemat, so I only needed two pockets on one side and a larger one on the other. It you have additional pieces of cutlery, besides adjusting the measurements, you may also want to sew additional pockets.

Step 6: Sew the pockets. This means that you will unfold the unpinned layer of fabric and sew where you pinned, from the bottom to to the top of the pocket fold (joining everything together but the exterior fabric). Remove the pins after sewing.

Step 7: Put the pieces of ribbon in place. Center them on each side of the pouch, as shown below.

Step 8: Place the part of the fabric you unfolded over the pocket side of the pouch, right sides together (basically you will be folding the fabric in the opposite direction as it was before), with the ribbon tucked in between. Pin all around.

Step 9: sew all around. You'll be sewing on three sides (because the bottom is folded) and you need to leave a small opening on one of the sides to turn inside out. After turning inside out, it should look like this:

Step 10: close the opening and top stitch all around (all four sides, this time). Embellish as you wish (optional). I added three yo-yos and fabric covered buttons.

And you're finished. Put the cutlery in place in the small pockets and add a placemat or a napkin to the larger pocket.

I made a matching placemat to complete the set. Click here for that tutorial.

This is such a clever idea that would be a great gift for the new parents that I made you my Featured Blogger pick for this week's Over the Moon Link Party. Please come back between Sunday evening and Thursday evening and grab your Featured Blogger badge for your blog. Thanks so much for sharing your idea with us.